Wish Upon a Star

That evening at five to five she was almost finished compiling a statistical table – she hated typing statistics – and stayed until a quarter after to get it done. It was unusual because, unlike the secretaries, the analysts had scheduled hours and usually left on the dot of five. Only Joan had to stay on to complete paperwork and arrange for temps or overtime work.

Now, as Joan put on her coat, she eyed Claire. ‘Don’t stay past six,’ she warned.

Claire smiled and nodded. The rule at Crayden Smithers was that an hour or more of overtime guaranteed a car service ride home. Of course, a ride to Tottenville meant going through Brooklyn, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and half of Staten Island. It was a two-hundred-and-ten-dollar fare in a chauffeured Mercedes. ‘We don’t have the budget for that,’ Joan told her as she walked out the door.

‘I know,’ Claire called after her. There, alone for the first time in more than eight hours, she took a deep breath. The commute this evening would be less brutal than at peak hours, though the wait would be longer. Getting to Tottenville after rush hour was the slow hour – or maybe two or three. Ferries, trains and buses didn’t run frequently. Everyone in Tottenville called Manhattan ‘The City’ – even though Staten Island was part of New York. Staten Islanders felt forgotten and inferior to the other boroughs. They were always coming up with new resentments and plans to secede. Her father had always said the place was too small to be a city but too large to be an asylum. Despite the four hours a day, lots of people made the long commute because they wanted to live in what seemed like – and what had once been – a small, waterside town within the New York City boundaries. But for Claire it was all tiresome, with nothing much waiting for her at either end.

Now she decided she would stop in a diner near the ferry terminal, have a salad for dinner, and then, she thought guiltily, maybe pie à la mode. Well, with or without dessert she wouldn’t go home until the rush was completely over. She was too tired to fight the crowd, for the long wait to board and perhaps having to stand for the whole ride. If she waited that would also mean she wouldn’t have to eat with Jerry and her mother. Now she’d be able to read while she ate, another guilty pleasure. She looked down into her bag. She had her knitting, and beside it was The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. Claire was almost halfway through, at that delicious place where she felt compelled to go on reading yet didn’t want the book to end. She felt herself looking forward to her modest evening, her little dinner, a special dessert (she would have the pie) and her book as company.

She sighed. She often wanted to read on the ferry but if she was with Tina – and she almost always was – it was impossible without offending her. That was one of the reasons she carried her knitting. Tina teased her, but it was something to do while Tina nattered on.

Claire finished the statistics, hit the print button and gathered up her belongings while the document rolled into the waiting basket. She was just putting on her new coat – a light green one that she thought complemented her eyes – when Mr Wonderful, Mr Michael Wonderful Wainwright himself, stepped into the room. It was a jolt because no matter how good he looked in her daydreams he was so much better in reality. He was slightly taller than Claire, his posture perfect, his chest broad and taut through his dress shirt. Mr Wonderful’s light blond hair was shiny in the fluorescent light of the office. As he surveyed the room with his hazel-colored eyes he almost looked through her. Claire froze then reminded herself to continue putting her arm into the sleeve of her coat. ‘Where’s Joan?’ he asked.

‘Joan’s left for the day,’ she told him, sounding more calm than she felt. She was afraid she’d begun to blush. She looked away from him, down at her bag. She picked it up and placed it carefully on her chair. Something to do. Keep busy and her eyes to herself. She also had to change into her sneakers but was embarrassed to do it in front of him.

She figured he’d leave then, but was startled by a loud thumping noise. She looked up to see Mr Wonderful had hit Joan’s desk with a thick document. ‘Shit!’ he said. Then he turned back to her and smiled. His smile was devastating, if not sincere. As irresistible as a frozen Mars bar in July and probably just as bad for her. ‘You don’t know where the Worthington numbers are, do you, Karen?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She went to the printer bin and held out the still-warm pages. ‘They’re here. And it’s Claire.’

‘Claire?’ he asked and looked down at the report in her hands as if she was talking about the document.

‘My name,’ she said. ‘Not Karen. It’s Claire.’

He reached for the print-out then looked into her face as he took the pages from her. ‘Of course. Claire,’ he said. ‘I was so panicked over this damn thing that I forgot. Excuse me.’ The closest Michael Wainwright had come to panic, Claire thought, was probably the day he feared he wouldn’t get into the right eating club at Yale. She just nodded and went back to her desk expecting him to go.

She picked up her tote bag, took out her sneakers and was about to sit down to put them on when she realized Mr Wonderful was still there. He was paging through the stats, then he looked right up at her. One of the shoes slipped out of Claire’s hand and bounced on the floor.

‘Look, Ka – uh, Claire,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘I already know I’ve made a couple of mistakes in this thing. We’re meeting on it tomorrow morning and I’ll look like a total fuck-up if I don’t have it right.’ He paused. She was afraid to reach for her dropped shoe so she just stood there, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Michael Wainwright walked over to her, bent gracefully to the floor and, with the report in one hand and her sneaker in the other, offered her the shoe with a princely flourish. She reached for it and he, as if in return for the favor, raised his eyebrows in a faux pleading look. ‘Do you think you could stay just a little while longer and make a couple of corrections for me?’

Of course. Some prince. But her hand actually tingled, holding the old sneaker that his hand had touched. She told herself she was a very foolish girl, then nodded her head because her neck seemed to work, though her tongue didn’t.

‘You will?’ he said in a voice that sounded less than surprised. ‘That’s great.’ He turned and shuffled a few pages, scribbling with a red pen. Claire struggled out of her coat and stowed her purse – along with the errant shoe – under her desk. She glanced up at the clock. It was already five-forty and she doubted she’d be out by six but she wouldn’t forget Joan’s directive about the car service. Claire wondered if it had gotten a lot colder, and how often the buses from the ferry ran after seven.

‘Hey,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘Take a look.’ She stood beside him and looked at the papers spread in front of her. ‘Here are my corrections,’ he said, pointing to more than a dozen pages slashed with red. ‘And could you check my tabulations and change this to a bar chart?’ To her concern the changes looked like the kind of statistical work which was painstakingly slow to correct. And if she changed the layout of the chart, it would need reformatting. And that would probably alter the pagination of the rest of the report. Then she’d have to page preview the entire thing before she printed it out, just to be sure there were no widows or orphans.

‘Can you do it?’ he asked, and it was, of course, impossible to say no. Unfortunately it was equally impossible to say yes, since she couldn’t speak. She was close enough to him to smell his scent – some kind of soap and perhaps just a hint of a clean cologne as well as something that smelled like … like fresh starch. How, she wondered, could he still smell fresh at six o’clock? He was pointing to one of the changes and she noticed that his cuff was whiter even than the printer paper. Yeah. And her sneakers smelled. ‘Will it take long?’ he asked, interrupting her self-loathing.

Claire shook her head and then managed to find her tongue. ‘About two hours, I think,’ she told him.

‘Great!’ he said. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’ He gathered up the pile of papers and handed them to her. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait in my office. And let me buy you dinner.’

THREE

Not counting the time Claire spent nearly fainting, then the dance she did around the room, it still took her a little longer to finish the Worthington revisions than it should have because she kept forgetting formatting codes and her fingers trembled for a long while after Michael Wainwright left the room. She also couldn’t stop herself from imagining what it would be like sitting across from that face for an hour. Would he ask her questions about herself or talk about his own life? What in the world would she say? Somehow she doubted he was interested in the kitchner stitch. Perhaps, she thought, Cinderella would get to go to the ball. Of course, she told herself, Michael Wainwright wasn’t interested in her, but even if the shoe didn’t fit she could wear it for one night.

She was hungry and tired by the time she was through, but she was also elated by the prospect of dinner with Mr Wonderful. She proofread the pages twice just to be sure that there wasn’t a single typo then printed the final draft out on high rag content bond. Ready to run it in to him she stopped her frantic activity, uncertain for a moment. Should she put on her coat and meet him ready to go out to eat, or just bring the document over then go back for her things? Perhaps she should call him. She knew his extension number was just one digit different than Tina’s, so she took a deep breath, sat down and dialed. He answered on the first ring. ‘It’s … it’s Claire,’ she said. ‘I’m finished.’

‘Terrific. Do you mind bringing it to my office?’

‘Not at all,’ Claire said and heard how stiff it sounded. ‘Sure,’ she added. ‘Right away.’

She emptied her bulky bag of her knitting, her sneakers, her book and her muffler. She put on her new green coat, smoothed it and checked the pocket for tissue since she was starting to get the sniffles. Then she quickly ran a brush through her hair and wished she’d remembered her lip gloss. But she was flushed with exhilaration, and as she glanced at herself in the mirror hidden behind the supply closet door, she was actually pleased with what she saw. She regretted not having the silk scarf she’d bought to go with the coat but it had been far too cold this morning to wear that. Oh well. Her muffler would do.

She walked out of the windowless maze and over to Tina’s desk. The office behind it had a single light on and in the shadowy room she could see Michael Wainwright at his PC, apparently still working. We’ve been working together, she thought and smiled. That and her new coat gave her the courage to enter his lair with a bit of confidence. ‘Here it is,’ she said, walking up to his desk. He continued working at his keyboard. She put the report down in front of him.

‘Thank god!’ a voice behind her said. Claire spun around. A slim, dark woman was sitting on the sofa behind her. Her legs, up on the coffee table, were crossed neatly at the ankles. Even though the light in that corner was dim, Claire could see the elegance of the cut of her hair and her gray suit. Claire didn’t know all the female investment bankers on the floor by name but she certainly would have noticed this chic woman. Was she a client from Worthington? ‘I’m absolutely famished,’ the woman said. Her voice was clear, her accent as polished as her obviously costly heels.

‘Me, too,’ Michael Wainwright agreed. Then he turned from the PC and looked up at Claire. For a panicked moment she thought he might invite the woman along for dinner. But perhaps Ms Chic just wanted the report and would be off to some elegant penthouse or spacious loft to study it overnight. Claire fervently hoped so. Mr Wonderful picked up the document, slipped it into his briefcase and stood up. ‘Ready to go?’ he asked.

Claire nodded, grateful she had worn her new coat. She could see that in comparison with the other woman’s clothes it was a cheap and shoddy thing but at least it was a hell of a lot better than her old one. ‘I’m all ready,’ she said.

Michael Wainwright and Ms Chic rose together. They both grabbed their own coats. Claire was ushered out the door in front of them and, to her dismay they walked as a trio to the elevator. In the fluorescent light of the hallway Claire could see the woman was about her age, with perfect skin, a size eight figure and the long legs of a fashion model. The shoes were spectacular, very sexy in contrast to the restraint of the suit. Claire hoped the woman would break a slender ankle.

‘Thanks a lot for doing this for me,’ Michael Wainwright said as they got into the elevator.

‘I can’t believe it took so long,’ Ms Chic complained.

‘I’m sorry,’ Claire apologized, then wanted to bite her tongue.

To make it worse the woman smiled at her. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s Michael’s,’ she said, dismissing Claire and focusing on Michael Wainwright’s face. She was not only much thinner but a little taller than Claire, and now she gave Mr Wonderful a look over Claire’s head. ‘You’re so inconsiderate,’ she told him.

Claire didn’t like her tone: it was provocative in the same way her shoes were.

‘Jesus, Kate, give it a rest,’ Michael Wainwright told her. When the elevator opened he allowed the two women to precede him into the deserted lobby, Ms Chic’s heels tap-tapping on the marble floor. At the huge glass doors of the building entrance a uniformed guard rushed up.

‘Let me unlock it for you, Mr Wainwright,’ he offered. Claire looked out into the dark. It was raining ferociously, but Claire was delighted to see a black sedan waiting at the curbside. She only realized the implication of a single car as the door was unlocked. Was this Kate going to go to dinner with them after all? Claire should have known not to get her hopes up or expect too much. She sighed.

Hearing her, Michael looked down at the top of her head. ‘You must be exhausted,’ he said. ‘Should I have Gus here call you a car?’

For a moment Claire was completely confused. He seemed to be looking at her but was he asking this Kate woman the question? Claire said nothing. Michael continued to look at her. Did he want to take two cars? Did he still have business to discuss with Kate before their dinner? What should she do? Now she felt both Gus’s and Kate’s eyes on her.

‘No, thank you,’ she said and hoped it was the right answer. What was going on?

Michael shrugged. ‘Okay. Well, thanks again.’ He turned then paused and put his hand into his pocket. He drew out his wallet and turned back to her. ‘I almost forgot,’ he told Claire. ‘I’m buying you dinner.’ He took out a crisp hundred-dollar bill and handed it to Claire. In her embarrassment and horror she accepted it. She felt tears rising, her throat closing.

‘Have a nice evening,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘Good night, Gus.’ He took the chic Kate’s arm and the two of them stepped out the door, almost running through the freezing downpour to the warm waiting car.

‘What a great guy,’ Gus said.

‘He’s the best.’ Claire sighed and Gus missed her disappointment and sarcasm.

FOUR

‘Yeah,’ Tina said. ‘Katherine Rensselaer. She’s new. She works for the Ford Foundation.’ Claire wondered why only the rich worked for philanthropists. She doubted there was one Hispanic single mother from the Bronx in charge of giving out charity. ‘He hasn’t dropped Blaire, but Kate is moving up fast. And Courtney is over. She just doesn’t know it yet.’

Claire sneezed. The weather had turned warm again and the sunlight glanced off the water of New York harbor. But the beautiful light only hurt Claire’s watering eyes.

‘Want a tissue?’ Tina offered.

Claire shook her head. ‘I brought some. I knew I was coming down with this cold yesterday.’

She had left the lobby humiliated, too embarrassed to go back upstairs for her sneakers, knitting or book. She’d gone out into the downpour without an umbrella and her muffler was drenched before she got to the corner. It had been hideously dark, no cabs in sight and, despite her hunger, she’d been too sick to her stomach to consider eating. Anyway, eating alone with nothing to read was no treat. In fact, on her wet and lonely walk to the ferry it had struck her as pathetic to eat alone at all.

Now she fished in her purse, pulled out a tissue, and blew her nose. She pinched her nostrils hard, but it wasn’t just because they were streaming. She wanted to pinch herself, to remind herself not to be so stupid ever, ever again. Her watery eyes cleared a little as two tears ran down her cheeks.

‘That’s some cold! You know, a beach would bake it right out of you. I’m getting our tickets today. It’s your last chance,’ Tina coaxed.

‘No thanks.’ Despite Claire’s intentions, tears continued to rise in and then fall from her eyes. She blindly reached for another tissue and pulled out what she thought was a crumpled one only to find it was actually the damp hundred-dollar bill. She’d gripped it in her hand last night until, after more than an hour, she’d realized it was there. Then she’d thrown it angrily into her bag. Now, of course, Tina spotted it.

‘Where’d you get that, just before pay day?’ Tina asked. ‘Did your mother finally feel guilty and decide to do the right thing?’

Claire pushed the money into her pocket, though she would have preferred to throw it over the side of the ferry. She sniffed. Despite her lack of Kleenex, she couldn’t stop her nose from running or her tears from escaping. She felt as if her whole head was leaking. ‘I’m going to run to the ladies’ room before we get to Manhattan,’ Claire said, ignoring Tina’s question.

In the ferry’s dim, gray-painted head she had a long cry in a stall. For a few moments she wished she were under the hull, down at the bottom of the harbor. Was it possible to cry under water? The thought made her stop and she got up and began to clean herself up at the sink. But the dented metal mirror over it gave her something else to cry about. She looked awful. She was actually grateful to her cold for giving her an excuse for the swollen eyes, the pink nose, the pallor, and the chapped, cracked lips she’d been biting since last night. As she looked at her image, the memory of Katherine Rensselaer’s came to her unbidden: the perfect skin, the understated clothes that discreetly announced big money, the well-cut glossy hair. Even her name was distinguished. Wasn’t there a city named Rensselaer in Connecticut or Pennsylvania?

Claire pulled out a comb and tried to give her hair some order while she wondered what it would be like to have your name on a place. Claire Amelia Tottenville. Ha! Even considering the dump her hometown was the name sounded more important. At least more important than Claire Amelia Bilsop.

As she was putting the comb away she felt the ferry bump gently. They were docking. How long had she been in here? Tina would be furious, waiting on the other side of the gangplank for her, angrily tapping her foot as the hordes of other commuters barreled past. As if Sy would give away her buttered roll. Claire, in the hold, knew all of the top and main deck would have to clear before she had a chance to get off and Tina would berate her along Water Street. Claire began to tear up again. She wasn’t sure she could stand it, or stand Joan’s questions about the Worthington work, or stand to look through her wet, tired eyes at today’s page of meaningless numbers until they blurred. The enclosed space of the toilet was unpleasant, but Claire realized that she felt safer there than she would feel once she was out. She wasn’t sure how she would make it through the day. But since she didn’t have a choice she shouldered her purse and stepped out to find Tina, waiting in exactly the attitude that Claire had predicted.

Claire kept her head down, literally and figuratively, during the walk to work, the stop for coffee, the entry into the lobby, the more-than-usually ghastly ride up in the elevator, and her scurry to her desk. She stowed her bag and hung her coat, and continued to hang her head. She didn’t know whose gaze she was avoiding; she almost never saw Michael Wainwright, and the Kate woman certainly wouldn’t be around. Gus, the guard, must be on the night shift. Nobody else had witnessed the event. In fact, it had been a non-event to Mr Wonderful and his woman of the day.

Yet, as she signed on, Claire realized the non-event had caused some seismic activity within her psyche, some significant rift. And the exposed subterranean gap seemed so horrifically visible to Claire that, somehow, she thought it must be visible to everyone.

As she sat at her desk and opened the bag holding her coffee and bagel, she realized that a belief she’d always held about herself might not be true. She had always ascribed her lack of passion to her own nature – reserved, introverted, shy, whatever. And she had never taken the crush that she had on Mr Wonderful seriously. She looked at it as a kind of avocation, not something you made a life’s work or took too seriously. But when he – as she had mistakenly thought – invited her to dinner, something had happened. Some feeling had burst through the scrim of her emotional life and flooded her with an undeniable joy. It had felt so intense, so complete, that to deny it would be a kind of sin. It had filled her to her very borders. In that hour or two of anticipation she had felt all of herself alive and knew how big she was capable of being, how much larger her repertoire of feelings was. Now, her limited life, her few outlets restricted her and she felt pain. It was as if she was a brilliant concert pianist who had always been forced to play with only one hand. Last night, for a few precious hours, both of her hands had been freed. This morning, knowing that she had to go back to living with a single hand, the future didn’t seem bleak – it seemed impossible.

She looked down at the keyboard in front of her, placing her hands on the home keys. A tear dropped onto her thumb but she wiped it away quickly. She spread out the work Joan had already assigned her and began. But she had trouble. Each dull line of figures was followed by yet another dull line followed by yet another … it seemed as if reading them or typing them into her consciousness and then onto the screen was building her into a prison, line by line, number by number.

She couldn’t imagine how to recover from this. Perhaps if she went out, had lunch alone, got an ice cream sundae and licked the spoon while she licked her wounds, she’d feel better. Something sweet with butterscotch sauce would be so … so soothing. But Tina wouldn’t stand for it unless she came too and that would spoil everything.

The odd thing was that even without telling Tina, with no one at all – even chic Kate or Mr Wonderful – knowing about her foolish misconstrual, Claire was experiencing such deep shame that it felt unbearable. She realized she had never known what that word meant until now, for, bearing the shame, she could hardly lift her head or her shoulders. No beast should be asked to carry such a burden.

Her cold gave her the pretext for her pink eyes and her posture. Luckily, there was a lot of work and no time for anyone else to notice her, at least not until eleven when Marie Two came in and started some kind of argument with Joan. Marie Two worked for Mr Crayden, Junior, and she was very particular about the research done for him. She often asked specifically for Claire but that was against Joan’s policy. Not that Marie Two believed in any policy but her own. Claire ignored their conversation until the volume rose. And she heard her name. Then Joan and Marie were standing at her desk. ‘She’s already working on …’ Joan was saying.

‘I don’t give a shit what she’s working on. Mr Crayden needs this and Boynton’s stuff can wait.’

‘You can’t just come in here …’

‘Watch me.’ Claire lifted her head. Marie Two was standing before her with a thick sheaf of papers. ‘God, you look sick,’ Marie Two said.